Tim Yeo

The UK Conservative party has a climate sceptic problem warns Tory MPTim Yeo, current chair of the Commons’ Energy and Climate Change (ECC) committee.

There is a strong minority of open climate sceptics in the Conservative party, Yeo told Leo Hickman, editor of Carbon Brief. This is mainly due to the party’s age profile, he said, as it has a higher proportion of older MPs compared to the Lib Dems and Labour.

“There’s a very strong representation of older people, of, I have to say it, of older, white males, actually,” Yeo said. “That’s the group who seem to have the most difficulty in understanding the science and accepting the urgency of the case. So it’s just that that group is a bit more strongly represented.

“But I think, I mean you know, to be brutal, they’re going to die off. Very few people under the age of 40 now, I think, seriously question the science, and that group is gradually taking over.”

David Cameron was the champion of climate change action during the 2009 Tory conference as the party appealed to concerned voters ahead of the general election. “If we don't act now, and act quickly, we could face disaster.”

But five years into a coaltion government with a Liberal Democrat party genuinely committed to climate change mitigation his promise to deliver “the greenest government ever” rings hollow. At this year's conference he all but ignored the issue of our age, saying only Britain is “leading and not following on climate change”.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE